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  The British Secret Service is on Captain Gringo’s back, seeking information on a Scottish pearl-trading colony on the Caribbean coast. Gringo’s in the dark as well – until a voluptuous redhead lures him into her bedroom to show him her collection of exotic pearls. From there it becomes a real knock-around time for the big Yankee soldier of fortune, fending off Carib gals and Scottish lassies, fighting a land-grabbing Spanish grandee and his death-dealing dirigible – and battling British imperialists who want to bring the pearl-rich colony to its knees!

  About the Book

  Publisher's Note

  Death Over Darien

  Copyright

  About the Author

  The Series

  About Piccadilly Publishing

  Publisher’s Note:

  As with other books in this series, the author uses characters’ native dialect to bring that person to life. Whether they speak French, Irish or Spanish, he uses the vernacular language to impart this.

  Therefore when Scottish characters use words such as “richt” instead of “right”; “laird” for “lord”; “oopstairs” for “upstairs”; “haim” for “home”; “ain” for “own”; “gude sores” for “good sirs” and “wha” for “who” plus many other phrasing, please bear in mind that these are not spelling/OCR mistakes.

  It cost less to get laid than it did to get drunk in Limón. Trouble came even cheaper. So despite the hour, Captain Gringo remained sober and chaste as he waited for Gaston in a dingy neighborhood gin mill between the railroad station and their last known address. Neither soldier of fortune knew why people had been asking questions about them at that hotel. But once the less visible Gaston showed up with those train tickets to San José, who cared?

  Somewhere a clock struck ten and the tall blond American trying to blend into the woodwork of the gloomy back booth he’d chosen glanced thoughtfully down at the beer schooner he was nursing. He knew a customer taking up a whole booth was supposed to buy at least once in a while. But he lit another claro instead. Gaston was late as hell, and as the evening wore on, the waitress seemed to be getting better looking for some reason. He knew cigar smoke didn’t have that effect on him. Maybe if he poured the rest of his suds on the floor and ordered another ...

  Then he really had something to worry about. Another guy loomed over him like a strange ship encountered in a fog bank and then, worse yet, took the seat across from Captain Gringo without asking permiso!

  This would have been considered rude in any gin mill. In a Latin American gin mill it was an open challenge to a macho mano a mano between men of delicate honor.

  On the other hand, the stranger looked no more Hispanic than Captain Gringo, so there was still hope. The big-Yank smiled thinly and asked, ‘Do I know you, amigo?’

  The slightly shorter but burly stranger replied, in a brick college British accent, ‘No. But you know the chap I work for, Greystoke of British Intelligence. I’d like to show you something, Walker. Please note that I’m reaching into the right side of my jacket with my left hand, eh what?’

  ‘You pack your gun under the left shoulder?’

  ‘Of course. Don’t you?’ the stranger replied, taking out a flat bundle of what could have been most anything in the murky light. As he spread things across the table between them, he said, ‘There’s a thousand pounds British in that envelope. I’m sure any local bank can change it to Costa Rican currency for you, eh?’

  A thousand pounds British was closer to five thousand dollars U.S. nowadays. But Captain Gringo regarded the envelope with as much enthusiasm as he might have stared at a coiled and buzzing sidewinder.

  He said, ‘Take it back to Greystoke and tell him to shove it. Every time I’ve been hired by you guys, it’s been dangerous to my health.’

  The British agent insisted, ‘We don’t want you to do anything for us this time. We just want to buy a spot of information, see?’

  ‘You must want it bad for that kind of money. But I don’t know the location of El Dorado, or how to cure the common cold, either.’

  The Englishman struck a match and applied it to the wick of a table candle Captain Gringo had snuffed some time ago as he said, ‘I want you to have a look at this Royal Navy chart, old bean.’

  The damage was done. The fat waitress was already looking their way hopefully. So Captain Gringo signaled her to bring two more cervezas before he pulled the chart closer for a look-see.

  He didn’t see anything that surprised him. He said, ‘Okay, this shows the southeast end of Central America where it stabs into South America. So what?’

  ‘Can you deny that less than a year ago you and Gaston Verrier disembarked at this very port from the pearl schooner Thistlegorm.’

  Captain Gringo smiled and said, ‘Not if someone working for you saw us get off. The skipper of the Thistlegorm, Captain MacTavish, was kind enough to offer us a lift up the coast from Panama. So what?’

  ‘You’re being evasive, Walker. Would it save time if I told you we know for a fact that both Flora MacTavish and her crew are female and that we suspect you and that little Frenchman you travel with became friends indeed with everyone aboard after you saved the vessel from coastal pirates?’

  Captain Gringo shrugged and said, ‘Not even Greystoke would pay a thousand quid to hear about my sex life. As for the clean parts, we parted company with the Thistlegorm and her crew here in Costa Rica, like you say, and haven’t seen hide or hair of them since. Do I still get to keep the money?’

  The stranger grabbed the envelope and opened it, muttering, ‘Not bloody likely. Here’s ten quid, to keep this conversation friendly. You get the rest when you tell me where Flora MacTavish might be right now, or better yet, show me on that chart. She must have mentioned her home port to you at least once, eh what?’

  Captain Gringo thought before he answered, ‘Sure. But I can’t place it on map paper for you. I’m not holding out on you. I hardly ever lie when the truth is in my favor. As you no doubt know, Gaston and me ran into the redhead and her all-girl Indian crew while bad guys were trying to give all of us a hard time. Flora said her pearler worked out of a fishing village called, let’s see, New Dunmore, I think. I got the impression it was somewhere in the Gulf of Darien. Period. She brought us up here to Limón. She never took us home to meet the folks.’

  The British agent studied him silently by candlelight as the waitress brought their beer mugs, batted her lashes at both of them, and left, looking hurt, when neither took her up on it.

  The Englishman took out another handful of five pound notes and handed them over as he growled, ‘I’m tempted to believe you for the moment. As soon as Flora MacTavish contacts you, we want you to contact us. A note to the British Consulate across town will do.’

  Captain Gringo shoved the money back at the sneak, saying, ‘I don’t think so, Lime Face. In the first place, old Flora is a friend of mine, which is more than your boss can say. In the second place, I’d be taking his money under false pretenses and Greystoke has a nasty temper when he’s crossed. I haven’t seen Flora MacTavish in months. I don’t see how she could know where I might be right now either, so—’

  ‘We know she’s looking for you,’ the Englishman cut in, adding, ‘She just missed you up in Gracias a Dios a few weeks ago. That was where we lost contact with her, by the way.’

  ‘Yeah well, Gaston and me had reasons to keep a low profile until we could get the hell out of Gracias a Dios, and we never left a forwarding address. I’ll tell you what. If I ever do run into that redhead again, I’ll tell her you guys are looking for her. She can take it from there, right?’

  ‘Wrong. The moment you have a line on Flora MacTavish or anyone connected with the schooner Thistlegorm, you’re to co
ntact us at once, or else!’

  Captain Gringo started to ask or else what. But that would have been dumb. They both knew that while Costa Rica had no extradition treaty with Great Britain or, worse yet, Uncle Sam, the British Empire could make trouble for a soldier of fortune with a price on his head and no friends in high places, anywhere. So he just snuffed out the candle again and said, ‘Tell Greystoke I’ll see what I can do. I can’t help you with that map, and a couple of toughs at the bar have been admiring that expensive suit you’re wearing. I think we’d both better get out of here, poco tiempo.’

  The burly Englishman followed his gaze, spotted the ragged-ass ladrónes he was talking about, and growled, ‘I say, they don’t look too tough for the two of us to handle, eh what?’

  Captain Gringo spread some change on the table between them as he replied, ‘Speak for yourself. I only fight when I’m paid or when I have to. Don’t duck out the back door when you’re ready to leave. That’s where the others are likely to be set up for you. But shit, if you don’t know the way the game is played down here by now, you’ve no business calling yourself a knockaround guy.’

  Captain Gringo didn’t spot Gaston when he scouted the railroad depot at a discreet distance. He hadn’t really expected to, but a guy had to start somewhere.

  The big Yank stood in a dark doorway chewing his unlit cigar as he pondered his next move. If Gaston had picked up tickets to the cooler and ever so much safer San José, he’d have come back to that gin mill with them, unless, of course, he’d spotted someone watching their agreed-upon meeting place and decided they’d best meet someplace else. So where else was there?

  Captain Gringo shrugged and headed back to the hotel. He and Gaston had known, when they left it without checking out earlier that evening, about all the strange faces doing nothing in the lobby and across the streets all around. But trying to think as a very sneaky little Frenchman might think, it occurred to Captain Gringo that there’d be little point in staking out a place the marks had left. Even if the hotel was still under observation, it was a lot safer place to meet than that seedy, dark cantina in a rougher neighborhood, right?

  The part of town the big Yank still found himself in was sort of spooky looking too, now that he knew where he was going. The local government no doubt thought it was saving money by not having too many streetlamps in the parts of town where they made tempting targets. But Captain Gringo didn’t want anyone to see too much of him as he worked his way through the slum, so it evened out. He’d been chased through Limón a couple of times in the past and could find his way by moonlight, he hoped.

  Hope faded as he rounded a corner and found himself facing a dead end instead of the intersection he’d expected. He knew better than to look for street signs in a neighborhood where anyone who could read was considered a sissy. He retraced his steps to a wider than usual calle and decided to follow it north. It had to lead to the waterfront, and from there, he knew the way.

  He didn’t have to walk that far in the end. He spotted a dark but familiar church tower he recognized and suddenly everything fell into place. His bearings restored, Captain Gringo cut into a narrow dark alley that led, despite its ominous gloom, toward the brighter lights of downtown Limón. He’d only followed it a short way when, behind him, he heard a short sharp scuffle, followed by a soggy thud. So he did what any old tropic hand would have done at a time like that. He whipped out his .38 and crabbed sideways as he spun. But then, as he covered the commotion from a gunfighter’s crouch, he saw a familiar figure rising from a larger one between them on the ground. As a chance moonbeam glanced off the blade in Gaston’s hand, Captain Gringo asked morosely, ‘Jesus, why didn’t you just club him from behind, you murderous little frog?’

  Gaston Verrier, late of the French Foreign Legion and amazingly spry for a man who had to be at least sixty, answered, ‘Merde alors, that is easy enough for you to say! Neither of my parents, alas, was a species of moose! Who do you imagine this cochon might have been in life? He’s been following you since you left the cantina where I asked you to wait, my shy young thing. He was moving in on you when I decided to end the charade.’

  Captain Gringo knelt by the prone body, rolled it face up, and struck a match. It wasn’t the British agent he’d been speaking to earlier. The features were Hispanic, the duds shabby, the ID nonexistent, but there was no mistaking the chosen trade of a gent who packed a lead pipe as well as a belly gun. As Gaston slid his own sneaky stiletto back in its neck sheath under the back of his collar, the taller and younger member of the team mused aloud, ‘I guessed right about the ladrónes hanging out in that gin mill. I told you it wasn’t safe for a stranger with shoes to loiter in it too long, and you were hours late, goddamn it!’

  Gaston said, ‘Oui, with good reason. As I said, there were très mysterious types watching the place from all around. I was hoping you would have the good sense to leave so I could approach you safely, Dick. But, merde alors, whatever possessed you to march even deeper into the très unseemly slum?’

  Captain Gringo stood up, saying, ‘I was just leaving. Did you get the tickets?’

  Gaston said, ‘Oui, hours ago, sans incident. But thanks to all this nonsense, we have missed the night train to the highlands and it is beginning to look like rain. Where do you suggest we hole up until the no doubt cold gray dawn?’

  Captain Gringo took the lead as he said, ‘Our hotel, of course. Our rooms are paid up until noon, and they don’t let bums like that one back there into such a nice joint. I found out who those guys watching us were. Our old pal Greystoke just tried to recruit us once more.’

  Gaston followed, taking two steps to each of Captain Gringo’s, but insisting: ‘Now I know we should find another place to spend the night, Dick! I thought we’d agreed to stay as far away as possible from that species of double-crossing Greystoke!’

  Captain Gringo nodded and began to fill Gaston in as they put some discreet space between themselves and the thug the little Frenchman had just put on the ground for keeps. By the time they saw lights ahead, Gaston knew as much as Captain Gringo, which of course wasn’t saying much.

  He asked, ‘What could British Intelligence want with that adorable Flora MacTavish? We both know she lacks brains, since she chose you instead of me that time. The child runs a pearling schooner, not a pirate ship the Royal Navy might be interested in, and did she not say she and her people are no longer British subjects in any case?’

  Captain Gringo nodded and said, ‘Her clan or whatever is left over from the hare-brained Darien Scheme of 1695. During the confusion between the English revolt of 1688 and the reign of William and Mary, a mess of Scots were sent over here to Central America to set up a colony. Once William of Orange showed the Scots they had to do what he said, and he said the whole idea was silly, the colony was abandoned. Flora said most of the Scots who hadn’t been killed by Yellow Jack or Indians went home. A handful stayed on as free squatters in the Gulf of Darien. I guess they must be Colombia’s answer to our own French-speaking Cajuns in the Louisiana swamps up north. I say guess because, like I told that limey agent, I’ve never met anyone but Flora who could tell me anything at all about the lost colony.’

  Gaston chuckled in fond remembrance and said, ‘Oui, the Indian maidens working for her, while enthusiastic divers indeed, spoke neither English nor Spanish, and in truth, I was not interested in geography as much as I was their adorable anatomy, hein?’

  Captain Gringo laughed and said, ‘I didn’t put it just that way to Greystoke’s agent. I think they’re more interested in where Flora’s settlement is than they are in Flora herself. We know Uncle Sam made the Royal Navy give back some of the coaling ports it’s grabbed on this side of the pond. Maybe they just want another one. Uncle Sam and everyone else seems to be mad at Colombia, these days.’

  ‘Oui, a British navy base south of the proposed Panama Canal sounds très strategic to me, and I am an old artilleryman! But since we don’t know where Flora drops anchor when she is n
ot gathering her modestly valuable pearls, it is not our problem and ... merde alors! It is starting to rain! Our problem is to find a roof, tout de suite!’

  The tropical storm broke just as the two soldiers of fortune dashed up the steps to the wraparound veranda of their hotel. As they ducked into the potted palm jungle someone for some reason had planted in the lobby, it was coming down fire and salt outside.

  Gaston chuckled and remarked, ‘Our friends who were lurking about down here would seem to be missing. I do not see how they could be lurking about outside right now, hein?’

  Captain Gringo growled a warning to shut up as they innocently approached the desk to pick up their keys. The sleepy looking night clerk had no reason to be surprised by their return, so he wasn’t. But as he handed the keys over, he told Captain Gringo, ‘A young woman was asking for you earlier, Señor Walker. She checked into 203, just down the hall from you.’

  ‘Oh? What did she look like, and better yet, how was she called?’

  The room clerk opened the hotel register as he murmured, ‘She was muy bonita, with hair the color of a glorious sunset. I think she was an Escocia. She spoke her Spanish with an Escocia burr. Her name, I see here, is Señorita Flora Mac-something. She writes most strange, as well.’

  Captain Gringo cut in, ‘Never mind, I know her. What time did she check in?’

  ‘About an hour and a half ago. She asked me to send word to her as soon as you returned. Naturally, I thought it perhaps wiser to consult you before I did such a thing, Señor Walker.’

  Captain Gringo placed a silver coin on the marble between them as he said, ‘You thought right. Don’t send a bellhop up. I’ll sort of surprise her myself.’

  The night clerk didn’t argue. But as Gaston followed Captain Gringo up the stairs, he asked, ‘Do you think that would be wise, Dick? As of the moment, we have train tickets to a safe and distant neck of those woods you keep talking about. I agree the redhead seemed a sweet and innocent child last time we met, but if the Royal Navy is after her or, worse yet, if they have her under observation at this very minute—’